Couldn't make the game on Saturday against Motherwell, so tonight's my first pre-season friendly that I can make. Should be a good game against a very strong Sunderland side. It's really good that Sunderland agreed to move the game forward 24 hours, to avoid a clash with the England semi-final. Unfortunately the other semi-final is tonight, so that's bound to affect the attendance and the game is no longer all ticket.

Thought that the over 800 crowd on Saturday was a good turnout so maybe a lot fewer tonight should be too much of a disappointment. If we get 400 to 500 that would be pretty good.
On another thought, there has been no word on any potential trialists. No evidence on Saturday that there are plans to bring anyone else in at the moment.

en passant wrote:Thought that the over 800 crowd on Saturday was a good turnout so maybe a lot fewer tonight should be too much of a disappointment. If we get 400 to 500 that would be pretty good.
On another thought, there has been no word on any potential trialists. No evidence on Saturday that there are plans to bring anyone else in at the moment.

I'd have thought that even with the semi-final tonight, we'd get at least a similar crowd tonight, as it's Sunderland's first friendly of the season, it's not far from Sunderland and all there new signings will be playing tonight. Well I'll be there anyway!

I thought at times we looked very sharp for game 2 of preseason. Hughes looks very good to me. Could do with losing a little bit of weight, but if he stays fit, he’s our new holding midfielder and did a good job.

The only thing I fear is that I’m not sure what formation Tommy wants to play and what suits the players best. They’ve never played well with 3/5 at the back. He wants to play Ainge and Styche but doesn’t want to play 4-4-2. If he doesn’t play wide men then where does Thompson fit in.

Great result to have last night. We all know results don't mean much in pre-season but it certainly won't do our lads confidence any harm.

Agree with what those have said above. Couple of players could do with shifting a bit of weight to help with fitness but we seem to have a fairly capable side.

We looked much more solid with 4 at the back. The players knew their roles and in the main we defended well. Credit to Harvey Saunders as well. I was one at the end of last season who was wondering if he had the football brain to go with his pace. But in both friendlies he's been making good runs in behind and took his chance against Motherwell very well. Fingers crossed it's a break through season for him.

Fantastic performance last night, thought the whole team played excellently. Have to admit Harvey Saunders looks a completely different player. Spoke to TW after the game and said they'd be sticking with a back 4 and that the team has only been in training for 5 hours, which makes last nights performance even better. Good to see Michael Oliver refereed the game, had a bit of banter with him as they went off at halftime, as I said his wife was a better ref than he was, which made him laugh. Thought the 400 predictions for the crowd were a bit on the low side.

Darlo_Pete wrote:Fantastic performance last night, thought the whole team played excellently. Have to admit Harvey Saunders looks a completely different player. Spoke to TW after the game and said they'd be sticking with a back 4 and that the team has only been in training for 5 hours, which makes last nights performance even better. Good to see Michael Oliver refereed the game, had a bit of banter with him as they went off at halftime, as I said his wife was a better ref than he was, which made him laugh. Thought the 400 predictions for the crowd were a bit on the low side.

My mate went, said most of the crowd were Sunderland.Good crowd for a friendly though and some welcome cash.

Some of the Sunland fans have gone into meltdown ... "season's a write-off if we cant beat a non-league side" etc etc. Our fans have kept the result in perspective, some of theirs have hit the panic button.

Vokuhila wrote:Yeah, there was a fair bit of excess timber out there tonight, but it is only the tenth of July. I reckon Liam Hughes in particular could become a big fans' favourite this season.

Where exactly is this excess timber?.Apart from Hughes who has obviously got a stone or so he could do without.Styche and Ainge are what they are,well built strong forwards and the rest of them looked in pretty good nick to me.

Vokuhila wrote:Yeah, there was a fair bit of excess timber out there tonight, but it is only the tenth of July. I reckon Liam Hughes in particular could become a big fans' favourite this season.

Where exactly is this excess timber?.Apart from Hughes who has obviously got a stone or so he could do without.Styche and Ainge are what they are,well built strong forwards and the rest of them looked in pretty good nick to me.

Yeah, I saw a little video on twitter showcasing all of Ainge's many goals since converting to a striker - my god, he looked phenomenal in the air. It just seemed as though all you had to do was get the ball in the box somewhere near his head, and it was in.

The majority of his 30+ goals were headers, many of them I wondered how he even got on the end of them.

The guy looks a beast - I can't wait to see him play live for us.

“Everybody knows where that club is going now, so I’m out of the way. They can carry on, it’s their club, they can keep it." - Raj Singh, 2017

A report on the game last night on Look North, that you can download on BBC i player. Although it was very biased towards Sunderland, talked to Sunderland fans before the game, only showed our goal and then Sunderland attacks. Then only talked to their manager and not TW, still what do we expect from the BBC?

Darlo_Pete wrote:A report on the game last night on Look North, that you can download on BBC i player. Although it was very biased towards Sunderland, talked to Sunderland fans before the game, only showed our goal and then Sunderland attacks. Then only talked to their manager and not TW, still what do we expect from the BBC?

At least you got a mention v youngsters trialists and lower league players, Spennymoor got nothing v a full strength Boro team